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River, Bird and Star 



(SECOND EDITION) 



BY 




AELLA GREENE, 



AUTHOR OF 

'' JoH\ Peters, " Gathered from Life," Etc. 



-« - - '» 



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PUBLISHED IN i8q6. 



,(l-^n 






Copyright, i8g6, 

BY 

AELLA GREENE. 



PRESS OF 

THE BRYANT PRINTING COMPANY, 

FLORENCE, MASS. 



CONTENTS 



I . 

BEYOND : 

" WHERE THE NOBLE HAVE THEIR COUNTRY 

THE JOY OF DOING 

BURDEN BEARERS 

A HEAVEN 

SIC ITUR AD ASTRA 

FORECASTING 

II. 

HERE AND NOW : 

THE EQUAL LOT 

AMONG THE TREES 

THE LESSON OF THE LILIES 

THE SINGING OF THE BROOKS 

MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

PETITION 

DAY-BREAK 

BLESSINGS FOR THE HELPFUL 

' O BEAUTIFUL VISION" 

III. 
CONTRAST : 

CLARE 

INTERLUDE 

LILLIAN 

IV. 

IDYLS OF FREEDOn : 

THE GREAT SACRIFICE 

AMERICA 

IN OTHER LANDS 

ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 

VISION AND PROPHECY 

A WARNING TO COLUMBIA 

ORDEAL AND OUTCOME 

A PILGRIMAGE OF CZARS 

BY KOSCIUSKO'S DUST 

WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS 



BEYOND 



I. 



"WHERE THE NOBLE HAVE THEIR 
COUNTRY." 



A BOVE the grandeur of the sunsets 
Which delight this earthly clime, 
And the splendors of the dawnings 

Breaking o'er the hills of time 
Is the richness of the radiance 
Of the land beyond the sun, 
Where the noble have their country 
When the work of life is done ! 



Speech cannot describe their heaven, 

Nor hath earth such brightness known, 
For that heaven is the country 

Of the Mighty and His Throne ! 
Man's brief furlongs cannot bound it. 

Nor his reason comprehend; 
God alone counts all its headlands, 

And like Him it hath no end I 



8 " WHERE THE NOBLE HAVE THEIR COUNTRY 



Power almighty flows forever 

Round the wondrous land above, 
In its flood and ebbing constant 

To the everlasting love; 
Chanting with the matchless cadence 

Of a deep and boundless sea, 
To the continent of heaven, 

Anthems of eternitv ! 



Welcome to those glories given 

From angelic harps of gold, 
Shall full often be repeated, 

Yet it never shall grow old; 
Music grander than earth's noblest, 

Than all eloquence of words 
And the sweetest of the carols 

Of the gladdest of the birds. 



And those glories shall the problem 
Of this earthly life explain, 

All its bitter turn to sweetness, 
All its losses turn to gain. 



'' WHERE THE NOBLE HAVE THEIR COUNTRY " 9 



And the rapture of the new life 
Shall exceed the griefs of this; 

And amid those scenes of grandeur 
Even labor shall be bliss ! 



Welcome there, and there forever 

Free from artifice of earth, 
Shall the noble of that country, 

In its things of real worth, 
Read the wisdom of the Father, 

From whose all-creating hand 
Are the beauties, and the glories, 

And the people of that land. 



There they learn what mean the visions 

Of the ancient seers that tell 
Of the wonderful possessions 

Where the glorified shall dwell, 
Of a better heaven than cities. 

Though of gold and jasper made, 
Of a soul delighting country 

Blessed with hillside, brook and shade. 



10 "where the noble have their country 



There, magnificent with forests, 

Is that country of the skies, 
Far excelling in its bird-songs 

All the earthly minstrelsies. 
And that country hath its mountains 

And is resonant with stream,s 
That are sweeter in their music 

Than the rivers of our dreams ! 



Blooms of finest form and lustre, 

Fragrant on the eternal hills, 
With their odors bless the zephyrs, 

That, harmonious with the rills, 
Sing, to give the angels pleasure 

And to welcome there, on high, 
The immortals, from their struggles, 

To the glories of the sky ! 



Yet a higher theme than heaven 
And beyond its vasmessfar, 

Lovelier than its fairest valleys, 
Grander than its mountains are, 



" WHERE THE NOBLE HAVE THEIR COUNTRY" i i 



Shall the noble have to study; 

For the One of matchless worth, 
For the Savior of the sorrowing 

And the sinful of the earth, 



With His mission here completed, 

Shall abide with them above, 
Far outshining all the wonders 

Of the country of His love. 
There He giveth them an er trance 

And that higher work to do 
That shall keep them ever growing 

And the charm of living, new ! 



And His name, throughout the ages, 

As the aeons circle by, 
To the trend and to the cadence 

Of their own cLernity, 
Shall be theme and inspiration 

In the land beyond the sun, 
Where the noble have their country 

When the work of life is done ! 



THE JOY OF DOING. 

" I ^HERE is heaven in grand endeavor; 

Even here it bringeth joy. 
O ! the ecstasy of action 

And the bliss of high employ 
Where the powers are all untrammeled 

And the soul can breathe the air 
Of the country of the spirit — 

O the joy of action there ! 



There, however great the longing, 

Still the heaven shall be more ! 
Longs the soul for wide exploring? 

There'll be vastness to explore ! 
Is there wish for sweetest music ? 

There'll be harmonies on high 
Far beyond imagination 

Of the people of the sky ! 



With the wish and eye for beauty 
Shall be rarest tints to see. 



BURDEN BEARERS 13 



Grouped in combinations painted 

Only in eternity, 
Where the limners live to study 

And for centuries have given 
Their ambitions to be perfect 

In the tracery of heaven ! 



BURDEN BEARERS. 



/^OURAGE ! O ye burden bearers, 
^^ Fating upward to the skies ! 
By the very weights ye carry 

To that country ye shall rise. 
Fare ye bravely, burden bearers. 

Fare ye bravely every day; 
Angels of that better country, 

Hither winging, guard the way 
From marauding spirits vexing 

Pilgrims on the heavenward road; 
And if burdens are too heavy. 

Angels aid to bear the load, 



14 



A HEAVEN 



And delight with their description 
Of the land beyond the skies. 

Courage ! O ye burden bearers, 
To that country ye shall rise ! 



A HEAVEN. 



Tl WHEREVER bloom the happy isles 
^ ^ In lasting verdure drest, 
Whereon perpetual morning smiles 
High welcome to the blest, 



No gilded barques bear any there; 

Nor, borne o'er summer seas, 
Do any find the orchards fair 

Of the Hesperides. 



Wherever the elysium is, 
In what good land afar, 



A HEAVEN 15 



And gained by what high ministries 
Of what benignant star, 



It is not reached along the way 
Where sirens charm the sea; 

But seek, the warning angels say, 
Through Christ of Calvary, 



The kingdom of conditions high. 
Where quality hath rate, 

Where fitness, and not heraldry, 
Gives entrance through the gate. 



For what man is, not where he is. 

His heaven is, or hell; 
His heaven the heavenly qualities 

That prompt his doing well. 



His heaven that high ennoblement 
That gives to whom 'tis given, 



l6 SIC ITUR AD ASTRA 



The blessing of a heart content 
To win his way to heaven. 



SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. 



■^ I " HOU selfish one who seekest heaven 

Through fear of final fire, 
And never had for heaven itself 
The first sincere desire. 



Supreme unselfishness alone 
Can for the skies prepare, 

And he alone may hope for heaven 
Who loveth what is there. 



Thou asking God to grant the boon 
Thou hast not tried to win, 

Beseeching His forgiving grace 
Yet never hating sin. 



SIC ITUR AD ASTRA 17 



And ever whining for the heaven 
Where only brave souls are — 

Wherever in the realms of space 
Revolves that happy star, 



The object of the good man's hope 

And goal of all his quest. 
Bright sphere of life, and growth, and joy, 

And work that giveth rest — 



That place of earth is nearest heaven 
Where the unselfish dwell. 

And where there is but selfishness 
There needs no other hell ! 



And thou who deemest 'tis decreed, 

By mandate of thy God, 
That thou be favored in His sight 

And spared the fateful rod, 



Which thou dost think is wholly right 
For those despised by thee. 



SIC ITUR AD ASTRA 



And therefore doomed by Him to wrath 
To all eternity, — 



It was a fratricide declared 
His brother not his care, 

And he alone is sure of heaven 
Who leads another there ! 



Go thou, like Christ, and strive to save 

Another than thyself ; 
For hoarding up salvation is 

As base as hoarding pelf ! 



And when, like His, thy life shall bless 

Thy suffering fellowmen. 
Then thou, for heaven canst hope, thyself, 

But art condemned till then ! 



FORECASTING. 



/^ THOU who bravely up the path 

^-^ Which frequent thorn of trouble hath, 

Steadfast didst try, 
If upward still thy courage climb 
Thy patience shall attain in time 
The summit of the height sublime 

From which thine eye, 



Unhindered by dense airs that blow 
To cloud morass of doubt below, 

Shall see fair ground 
Beyond the waters flowing cold, 
A country which doth richness hold 
Excelling that the men of old 

At Eshcol found. 



Some time in exultation spent 
Shall intervene ere thy descent 

At beck of sprite 
Whose barge shall bear thee o'er the tide 



20 FORECASTING 

To land thy vision hatii descried — 
Nor shall thou always there abidi, 
Nor wish thou might. 



For, far from false and with the true, 
Thy youth renewed and vision new, 

Thou soon shalt be, 
To learn from features of that shore 
That they but prophesy of more 
And bid thine enterprise explore 

With ecstasy 



New continent, and seas, and isles, 
Whereon such radiant solstice smile 

To cheer thy gaze 
That thou shalt think the brightest beams 
The former gave, but faded gleams 
Of sunshine of forgotten dreams 

Of other days ! 

That land attained, thy study there 
Shall thee for further quest prepare, 
That shall allure ; 



FORECASTING 21 



And faring on, what thou shalt find 
Thy broadened and still growing mind 
Shall solve, assimilate and bind, 
And make secure. 



And it shall rare nutrition be, 
And spur, and stimulant, for thee. 

To aid thy will, 
That shall increase with thy desire. 
To this new good thou mayst aspire 
And mayst attain, to find yet higher. 

To beckon still ! 



Inspiring faith that paints the scene- 
A heaven of hills and valleys green, 

With songsters bright 
That sing responses to the call 
Of mellow murmuring waterfall ; 
And blue, benignant over all, 

A sky of light. 

Whose language is not only peace, 
But that which teaches an increase 
Of all that's heaven. 



22 FORECASTING 



In such gradaiions evermore 
As thou shalt inward from thai shore 
The country of the blest explore, 
With blessing given. 

And, scanning copse and forest belt 

That through the years of heaven have felt 

The zephyrs' joy 
That sweeps the flower-scented plains 
Of that good land whose bliss explains 
Thine earthly lot, thou'lt hear the strains 

The birds employ 

And songs the airs and rivers sing, 
To make the elysian valleys ring 

The ages through. 
And angels of the loftiest lyre, 
In joy that thou shouldst so aspire, 
Shall wake the strings to noblest fire 

They ever knew. 

O ! grandeur of the land that lies 
Away somewhere beyond the skies! 
Beyond earth's dream — 



FORECASTING 2$ 



How far beyond the visible 
Imagination cannot tell, 
Howe'er intensely it may dwell 
Upon the theme ! 



Thou shalt have sail for broadest seas 
And time to solve all mysteries 

Thy search hath spied. 
Whatever thine ambition be, 
Thou shalt no limitation see ; 
Thy time is all eternity, 

Thy scope as wide ! 



HERE AND NOW 



w 



THE EQUAL LOT. 

ITH equal hand, impartial Heaven 
Bestows on all, the blessings given 
To cheer the earth. 



If birds that bless the morns of sprino: 
Alone at regal courts would sing, 
We might complain. 



But everywhere, from hill to shore, 
The joyous warblers artless pour 
Their songs for all. 

As grateful thine anemones 
And all the perfumed potencies 
Thy rose exhales 

As odors they of kingly kind, 
Empurpled in a palace, find 
Hie flowers to yield 



28 THE EQUAL LOT 



That grow by royal gardener dressed, 
And bloom with smiles of princess blessed, 
On sacred days. 



Nor sweeter sound than you or I, 
Hears king or Croesus, walking by 
The purling brook ; 



Nor, navied in their gilded boats, 
Than we embarked in common floats, 
More restful plash 



Of wave ; nor surer they to ride 
In safety to the haven side 
Of waters sailed. 



Nor king than we has sweeter hymn 
Of Zephyr ; nor doth Sunset limn 
Diviner west 



AMO^'G THE TREES 29 



For king, with hues from heavenly fount ; 
Nor nearer is the royal count 
Of stars than thine 



To His who outlined nature's plan 
And reared the astral arch, to span 
The universe ! 



w 



AMONG THE TREES. 



^rHEKE nature reigns distinctions fade 
That pride may bring to grove and 

glade, 
To flciunt them there. 



Rank has no sway at nature's court, 
And fame is there of small import, 
And pelf is scorned. 



30 AMONG THE TREES 

Impartially, when vernal breath 
Proclaims the winter's reign of death 
Is at its end, 



The maple buds portend the June, 
Whose leaves shall cool the torrid noon 
Of summer time. 



To thee as kindly welcome wave 
The elms as unto prince they gave 
Who fared that way. 



And wild and tender harmony 
The pensive pines address to thee 
As unto ail. 



And breathe balsamic airs of health. 
Uncaring for their rank and wealth 
Who seek the boon. 



AMONG THE TREES 3 1 



The quiet beauty of the beech 
To ihee as unto all will teach 
if thou wilt learn, 



The loveliness of real worth, 
Whatever station in the earth 
The worthy have. 



To thee as ^^rand the oaks that hold 
Discourse with crags of mountain bold, 
Anent the storms. 



As unto royalty they seem ; 
And for thine eyes as brightly gleam 
The autumn woods 



As for the monarch who desires 
To imitate their gorgeous fires 
On robes he wears, 



AMONG THE TRELS 



But finds that futile is the sleight 
Of kino;s to deck themselves as bright 
As nature shines ! 



Contrasting with the snowy lands, 
As sombre-hued the hemlock stands 
To symbolize 



Thy grief, as tl.ough the dark cold green, 
Sighing, bemoaned with northland queen, 
Her consort dead. 



And when, again, the trees in bloom 
Dispel the thoughts of death and doom, 
And hope inspire, 



Thou canst the s^raceful tasselina^ 
That decks the birchen boughs of spring 
As well enjoy 



THK LESSON OF THE LILIES ^^ 

Uncrowned, untitled and unknown, 
As though instated on a throne 
Of kingly power. 



THE LESSON OF THE LILIES. 



1VTATURE rebukes presumptuous men, 
And yet invites the constant ken 
Of reverent souls. 



And still the words the Master saith, 
Who came of old from Nazareth, 
Nature repeats : 



Consider thou the lilies well, 
O man, who thinkest thou canst tell 
Their coloring, 



34 'i'HE LESSON OF THE LILIES 

And canst the processes divine 
Wherein the primal hues combine 
That beauty give, 



And tell the fragrances that meet 
To make those rarest odors sweet 
That lilies shed. 



Consider thou the lilies well, 
O man, who thinkest thou can tell 
What lilies are — 



Perfection of the alchemies 
Wherein the chemists of the skies 
Have wrought their best I 



And lilies not alone meant He 
Who taught, on nills of Galilee, 
Their loveliness. 



THE LESSON OF THE LILIES 35 

But all the flowers that decked the field 
For Him did sweetest pleasures yield, 
And theme for thought. 



And, eloquent above thy speech, 
The flowers will still their ethics teach, 
O man of earth, 



As when, to prove His doctrine true, 
In Palestine, the Teacher drew 
From nature's store. 



And, mortal, thou canst ever find. 
If well instructed is thy mind 
By heavenly power, 



Such high renewal of thy might, 
Such mspiration and delight. 
And rest, and peace. 



36 THE SINGING OF THE BROOKS 



In thinking- on the works of God. 
From tiny twig and velvet sod 
To mountain peak, 



As thou in thine ambitious schemes 
Fulfilled unto thy brightest dreams, 
Canst never find ! 



THE SINGING OF THE BROOKS. 



" I ^ HE sweetest songsters carol 

^ Among the Berkshire hills, 

In harmony with music 

Arising from the rills 
That flow with silvery murmur, 

In melody along 
And charm as if in heaven 

They learned the art of song, 
./W^^wers tyHim empowered 

Who formed the starry spheres 



THE SINGING OF THE BROOKS 37 

And guides their rhythmic motion 
Throug-h all the circling years. 



Bright brooks ! they came from heaven, 

To teach the tuneful art, 
And woo men from their sorrows 

And from their cares apart ; 
To teach them high behavior. 

And gentle ways and true, 
Inspiring them with courage 

To fight life's battles through ; 
The while, through all the harshness 

That gives to earth its ban, 
They live attuned for living 

Where harmony began. 



There other brooks, in chorus 
With other birds, shall sing, 

To tell the power and goodness 
Of the Eternal King ; 

And welcome home the singers 
From the dissonance of time 



38 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

To the melodies of heaven 
And the zephyrs of the clime 

With song far, far exceeding 
The music of the rills 

That carol with the songsters 
Among these restful hills. 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS. 



nPHY valleys how lovely, thy mountains 

^ how strong, 

O Northland, how charming thy rivers of 

song ! 
No finer through storied lands singeth the 

tide 
Of Tiber, or Danube, or Severn, or Clyde ; 
No brighter to Scotchmen the burns which 

they know 
That sweet to Loch Katrine through heather 

bloom flow ; 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 39 

No gladder to Lomond whirl joyous away 
The streamlets through dingles with hazel 

bloom gay, 
Nor sweeter to Switzeis sing brooks to 

Lucerne 
Than waters whose music New Englanders 

learn. 
No sweeter the far wave than waters that sing 
Where Greylock of hilltops is grandly the 

king, 
Ihan whirl from Wahconah the waters away, 
That bright over gravel of gold and of gray, 
Through Dalton dales dimple, and sparkle, 

and play, 
Than brooks from Katahdin, than others that 

flow 
Where airs from Monadnock inspire them to 

go— 
Than sing the bright thousands of brooklets 

along 
Entrancing the whole of New England with 

song ! 



Or, if streamlet is sought of sorrow to tell, 



4o MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

What brook is more plaintive in old country 

dell 
Than waters from Monument Mountain that 

purl, 
Lamenting the fate of the Indian girl 
Who loved where she might not, and thought 

she must die, 
And plunged in despair from a precipice 

high. 
But sorrow chimes not with the note of your 

voice, 
O waters of No'thland, that ever rejoice, 
And even when warning that danger is near 
Intone the monitions to cadence of cheer. 



Ye brooks of New England that carol like this, 
O warble forever to Northland your bliss ! 
And ye who admire them, O leave them to run. 
And wimple, and sparkle, and sing in the sun. 
Unchained to carved channels that dullards 

have made 
In worship of Use and the tyrant of Trade ! 
O leave them that faring unfettered along, 
They babble their beautiful blessing of song ! 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 4I 

But more than the music or glance of the wave 
O'er which every lover of beauty may rave, 
While men of each land of their home rivers 

boast 
O'er waters enchanting the foreigner's coast 
'Tis the truth of their numbers that giveth 

the worth 
To musical waters that gladden the earth. 



Go, zephyrs of heaven and fleet ye afar 
By light of morn lustre and gleaming of star, 
And tell in the city, and desert, and dell. 
To all who in cot or in palace may dwell, 
Or tent on the plains, or anywhere live, 
What calm and what rapture the river songs 

give— 
The strength for brave doing, the power to 

endure. 
The vision to see and the faith to secure 
The blessings that nature delights to confer 
On those who in loyalty seek them of her. 
And mortal, whatever the cadences be 
Of rivulet, lake wave, or surge of the sea, 



42 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

'Tis the spirit of God speaks through them 

to thee. 
Who often discovers that man is untrue, 
May think that the waves will be false to 

him, too. 
Yet faithful forever the voice of the tide ! 
And, chant they to warn thee, or hearten, or 

guide, 
Believe in the waters — a brook never lied ! 



Or purling as soft as the peace of the sky. 
Or singing as grand as the harpers on high, 
It giveth forever the essence of truth 
That solaces age and sanctifies youth, 
And, warbled in valley or prattled in glen. 
Is simple as childhood yet equal to men — 
Truth sweet as the roses that blossom in 

heaven. 
Truth hither for mortals to rivulets given, 
And sung in the sun time and star time, to 

give 
High hint and good helping: sublimely to live ! 
What rashness of pride that ventures to spurn. 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 43 

What wisdom of reverence that listens to 

learn, 
The truth to be heard in the song of the burn. 
Sweet pleading with Power to be true and be 

mild 
As brook is, or bird is, or Christ, or a child, 
It telleth the way to the destinies grand 
As fancy can paint or wish to command. 



Whatever thy talent, what work doth engage, 
And living wherever, in whatever age. 
And however many thy years on the earth. 
The rivulet's voice will still have its worth. 
And when shall appear the swift coming day 
When thou from this province must journey 

away 
To country, wherever that country may be. 
Reached over what mountain and over what 

sea. 
Where thou shall find much that is strange 

unto thee. 
How sweet, when departing, to look on the 

wave 



44 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

That joy to the days of thine earthly life gave! 
And O ! what a rapture 'twill add to thy 

heaven 
If there, in that country, like music be given, 
If there, to enchant thee, shall carol and 

gleam 
The waters with sparkle and song like the 

Stream 
Enhancing the days of thy sojourning here 
With song that is wisdom and song that is 

cheer ! 



Thy valleys how lovely, thy mountains how 

strong ! 
O Northland ! how charming thy rivers of 

song ! 
Bright waters, that winding from Windsor 

away, 
Swift purling o'er gravel of gold and of gray. 
Through Dalton dales dimple, and wimple, 

and play. 
As waters in elfinland singing to fay. 
The fairies entrancing as rivulets may, 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 45 

And rivulets will, so the fairy folks say, 
With witcheries weird of the gambolings gay, 
And cadences fine and melodies sweet. 
And fit where elite of the fairy folk meet, 
With honors the princes of elfland to greet— 
Ye waves from Wahconah through thickets 

that flow, 
And charm to their sweetness the wild 

flowers that grow — 
What numbers, bright waters, your music 

can tell, 

Thus witching through wildness and dulcet 
in dell ! 

Sweet waters ! bright waters, that charmingly 
sing 

Of Dahon, the jewel of Berkshire the king ! 



Ye waters, that winding from Windsor away, 
Through Dalton dales dimple, and wimple 

and say 
As, bright over gravel of gold and of gray. 
Ye chant in high music while charmingly gay, 
"Thou listening entranced o'er the musical 

wave. 



46 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

To honor the music, O mortal, be brave ; 

Be more than the mood that comes of mere 

charm ; 
The trancement of sweetness is cause for 

alarm — " 
Ye waters inspiring the valiant until, 
Grown godlike from heeding the song of a rill, 
They honor in action the truth of the song 
That sparkles and warbles their life ways 

along — 
What seer hath the vision, ye waves, to divine 
The wealth of your wisdom, ye waters benign! 



Ye brooks from Katahdin and streamlets that 

flow 
Where airs from Monadnock inspire them to 

go; 

Ye waters that sing in Otsego and shine 
Reflecting the love of the spirit benign ; 
Ye brooks to Itasca that sing through the 

plains, 
Entrancing the vastness with charm of your 

strains ; 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 47 

Ye waters the depths of wild canyons that 

dare, 
And calmly the truth to the mountains 

declare — 
Wherever all over the Northland ye sing, 
From heaven, bright waters, your music ye 

bring ! 



Ye waters of Northland, that carol like this, 
O warble forever to Northland your bliss ! 
And waft ye, fleet zephyrs, to every strand 
This music of gladness, this joy of our land ! 
And, say, O ye zephyrs, who chant with the 

tide 
Of Tiber, or Danube, or Severn, or Clyde, 
And waves of the musical waters that pour 
Enchantment to every inland and shore. 
And thus have been singing through all of 

the years, 
Enhancement of gladness and comfort of 

tears — 
Say, zephyrs, wherever your courses ye wing, 
If brighter than waters in Northland that 

sing, 



48 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

If brighter ye find a wave in the world, 
If lovelier the waters in Eden that purled ! 



II. 



Tl THERE Mountain Monadnock, majestic 
^ in might 

And infinite leisure, rose grand in his height, 

And angels came heralds from heaven to bring 

The best of May mornings to gladden the 
spring. 

And waters from beechen grove sparkled 
whose wave 

That charm to the hours of the bright morn- 
ing gave 

Which wakens the birds to their cheeriest 
tune 

And Mayfields to green to the brightness of 
June — 

There, forth from the home of her humble 
life sweet, 

A maiden went singing the morning to greet. 

And, tranced by the resonant waters that sang 



MKSSAGbS OF THE WATERS 49 

Till echoing distances joyfully rang, 
She waited in wonder and awe at the song 
The waters were warbling that sparkled along, 
While Mountain Monadnock, rejoicing in 

might, 
From foot hills to summit beamed forth his 

delight. 



And rapt o'er ihe scene of that morning of May 
The maiden entranced heard the waters to say: 
" Thy motto be duty, thy jewel be truth ; 
And wisdom prize ever as prizing in youth ; 
And love, which to many but sorrow doth 

bring, 
Shall be thy good angel to cheer thee to sing 
Beyond the high music of joyfulest stream 
That ever charmed poet to tunefulest theme. 



" Go ask of thy mother what message I said 
When hither her thoughtfulest saunteringled. 
And breathing the hope of a treasure to be. 
She went and months later came speaking of 
thee. 



50 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

With joy and the graces of motherhood came, 
Discoursing of thee and telling thy name. 
Bright seasons have blossomed and blossomed 

again, 
And Cometh the maiden where matron came 

then. 
That message, well heeded by matron, I read 
In traits of the maiden, who surely will heed 
The counsel, when matron shall tenderly tell 
The message and ask her to honor it well." 



The summers that came and the summers 

that went 
To girlhood the graces of womanhood lent ; 
And, lovingly loitering there by the stream. 
Entranced o'er the ripple, and dimple, and 

gleam, 
Two whispered the message the matron had 

told, 
The words that she heard of the river of old. 
And, each ripple a song and each dimple a 

gem, 
The waters repeated the message to them — 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 5 1 

That kindness of each to the other would give 
To offspring best traits of each other and live 
In habitudes high of childhood, to tell 
Their wooing was wisdom, their mating was 

well. 
Prenatal inclining to goodness, thus given ! 
Bestowing, ere breath, the impulse for heaven! 



And later with infancy smiling they came ; 
And followed another who listened to name 
The father and mother breathed forth in their 

joy 

And raised, at their bidding, to brow of 

the boy 
Bright drops of the rivulet's musical wave, 
To honor the message those waters once 

gave. 
Then, looking in faith to the blue of the sky, 
Each reverently prayed to the Gracious on 

high ; 
And the birds and the zephyrs united in song 
With voice of the waters that caroled along — 
A song that was prayer for and thanks for 

the joy 



52 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS. 

Prefigured in crystal drops, there, for the boy. 
And Mountain Monadnock, beholding the 

rite. 
In sweetness and majesty glowed with delight. 



III. 



Tl THERE singing to mountains its reson- 
^ * ant song 

A brook from a beechen grove caroled 
along, 

In chime with the robins, reflecting their 
bowers, 

Inspiringthe sunbeams to sweeten the flowers, 

And rippling in time of the march of the 
hours 

Of a morning the best that the skies could 
attune 

And send from Elysium to gladden a June — 

There fresh from the meads where the butter- 
cups grew. 

There free as the birds from the bloom fields 
that flew. 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 53 

There joyously singing child songs that he 

knew, 
There charming as nature, and artless and 

true. 
There bright on the morn of that June day 

of joy, 
There, blithe with the breath of his blisses, a 

boy, 
Impelled by the pulses prophetic of man, 
In step with the waves of the rivulet ran. 
Then, halting in rapture, delighted to scan 
The waves of the beautiful streamlet that 

sang 
Until with the carol the distances rang, 
He tarried, entranced and held in high 

mood. 
To muse on the song of the musical flood ! 



And this was the song that the rivulet sung 

With its liquid lip and its silver tongue : 

" In the freedom of childhood, O childhood, 

rejoice ; 
Here's health to thy being and charm to thy 

voice ! 



54 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

The simple things l©ve thou, as loving them 

now ; 
The angels love these, and ever love thou. 
Wouldst be like the eagle ? the rather the 

dove be ; 
The lilies, the robins, the blue sky above thee, 
Love these and be like them and angels will 

love thee, 
While birds and the zephyrs shall make it 

their choice 
To copy in carols the charm of thy voice. 



"If wisdom be thine and if virtue attend 

thee 
The blessings of heaven the Gracious shall 

send thee, 
Commanding the best of His host to defend 

thee. 
Bright songsters entrancing their high songs 

to sing thee, 
Swift argosies gems from the far isles to 

bring thee, 
And airs the rare odors of east clime to wing 

thee. 



MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 5$ 

O pure as the breath of the flowers of the 
wildwood, 

Forever be true to the dreams of thy child- 
hood ! 

And angels and good men shall ever rejoice 

In the health of thy being and charm of thy 
voice." 



And this was the song that the rivulet sung 
With its liquid lip and its silver tongue. 
And mountains responsive the cadences gave 
To zephyrs that, charmed with the song of 

the wave, 
The melodies far through the distances told 
To angels who came with their tunefulest 

gold, 
The angels who listen attentive in heaven 
For singing to mortals by rivulets given. 
And catching the numbers they hasten where 

gleam 
The resonant waves of the musical stream. 
And study its music to heighten the worth 
Of songs they have learned in the land of 

their birth. 



56 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 



And, trying the measures in chime with the 

lay 
The robins are singing in praise of the day, 
They chant the blent music for cheer unto men 
And soar a^ay singing to heaven again. 



Of excellent birth was the boy by the wave 
That joy to the hours of the June morning 

gave. 
Again there he listened, and this was the 

song 
The waters were chanting that sparkled 

along : 
" Who love thee will tell thee of words that I 

said 
When hither good angels their sauntering led, 
And tell thee, bright one of the fortunate 

birth. 
What greatly shall heighten thy joy and thy 

worth 
And make thy good fortune a blessing to 

earth — 
A story they learned from pages they read 
Till deep of its meaning their spirits had fed, 



MESSAGES OF THE WA'JEKS 57 

His Story whose sacrifice charms away fears, 
And brightens the glory of all of the years ! " 

'' That story, ye waters, my father has told 
And bade me to prize it more precious than 

gold — 
The sheep and the shepherds at night on the 

plains. 
The angels high chanting their heavenly 

strains, 
The child in the manger, the men from afar, 
And that beautiful, beautiful, wonderful 

star!" 



" O pure as the breath of the flowers of the 
wildwood, 

Love ever the idyl that came to thy child- 
hood ! 

And cherish the dreaming it gave unto thee. 

For fancies of childhood, though fancies they 
be, 

Have truth from that country away over sea. 

Bright dreams of pure childhood, ideals from 
heaven! 



58 MESSAGES OF THE WATERS 

The brightest of blessings that morials are 

given ! 
O pure as the breath of the flowers of the 

wildwood, 
Keep sacred the idyl that came to thy child- 
hood. 
High born as thou art, thine heritage prize, 
As steward of blessings bestowed from the 

skies. 
O given from heaven that excellent worth 
The instincts and temper of fortunate birth, 
Not vain of thy goodness, help those who 

have less, 
And be thine ambition to live but to bless. 
Lift up the downfallen and lead to that One 
Who knoweth how sadly some lives are begun, 
Who pities their erring and knoweth each 

frame 
And points from their woes to the power of 

His name." 



The words of the brook to the boy by the 

wave 
Awake to the wisdom its resonance gave 



PETITION 59 

Were heard and remembered by angels on 

high 
And chanted to sweeten the songs of the sky ! 
There, greeting the glad one whose June day 

of joy 
Was bright with the hope and the bliss of a 

boy, 
There, sweet in the dawn of some June day 

of heaven, 
Shall angels enchant him with canticles given 
Where singing to mountains its resonant song 
A brook from a beechen grove caroled along ! 



PETITION. 



/^ GOD, the griefs I cannot tell 
^-^ Give me the grace to bear, 

And grant, O Lord, the faith to feel 
1 have a Father's care ; 



6o PETITION 

The faith of patience that can wait 

Till providences prove 
That things which seemed unkindest fate 

Were evidence of love ; 



The faith to see Thy gracious hand 
In each untoward event. 

And all 'tis hard to understand 
Believe in mercy sent ; 



The faith to see through storms arise 
A waving wealth of grain, 

Which, ripened by benignant skies, 
Shall all the storms explain. 



O God, the griefs I may not tell 
Help me in silence bear. 

And grant, Lord, the laith to feel 
1 have a Father's care. 



DAY-BREAK. 

A T last along the eastern sky 
^ The glimmerings of morn, 

To end in radiance of joy 

A night of doubt and scorn ! 



Diead night — it was a winter long ! 

And cold with winds of fate, 
That still, through all their fiendish song, 

Were hot with ire of hate 



And live with imps, whose interludes 
Chimed with the airs, to tell 

The rancor of infernal feuds — 
Fit minstrelsy of hell ! 



But now the birds with carols high 

Charm all Doubt's fiends away, 

And crimsons now the eastern sky, 
To hint a coming day 



62 BLESSINGS FOR THE HELPFUL 

That shall through all its hours remain 
Unvexed by doubt and scorn, 

And in the full of noon retain 

The newness of the morn ! 



A day whose evening shall proclaim 
That brighter dawning waits. 

Fulfillment of the sunset flame, 
At the celestial gates ! 



BLESSINGS FOR THE HELPFUL. 

f^^ GOD friend, if every one observed 
^^ The mandate to be kind, 
If all were courteous as thyself, 

And helpfully inclined, 
How bright a scene this earth would be, 

How light life's burdens prove ; 
How blithe, along life's rugged road, 

Would pilgrims singing move ! 



" O BEAUTIFUL VISION " 6^ 

The joyousness of sparkling streams 

Would bless life's desert drear ; 
And birds would sing, and flowers and fruit 

With fragrance fill the air ! 
There is no overestimate 

Of kindness to our kind, 
And brightest stars will bless the man 

To helpful ways inclined ! 



"O BEAUTIFUL VISION." 

r^ BEAUTIFUL vision! that Harmony 
^^ came 

And sang until Hatred and Anger grew tame, 
Forgetting forever their longing for blood, 
And learning of Gentleness how to be good ! 
And Sloth was converted and longed for 

employ, 
While Envy and Slander forgot to annoy, 
And toilers, contented and singing for joy, 
Were glad of the hardness ihey had to endure. 
That fitted for triumph and made it secure ! 



64 '' O BEAUIIFUI. vision" 

And angels were consiann from heaven to 

earth 
With garlands for Labor and jewels for 

Worth. 
Proud Science, grown humble, endeavored to 

learn 
Mechanics from insects and music frum burn, 
And artisans spurning their much boasted 

skill, 
Saw structure in cobwebs and might in a 

rill ! 
Then Greed grew repentant and gave up his 

pelf, 
The warrior, learning to conquer himself, 
Rejoiced in the thought that at last he was 

brave. 
And despots relented and ceased to enslave; 
While all of the cruel, forsaking their trade. 
And honest in tears for the havoc they made. 
Sought only to better the world they had rent, 
And proved by right living their wish to 

repent. 

Yet, angel of vision, nor Harmony can. 
Nor any high excellence native with man, 



"O BEAUTIFUL VISION" 65 

Ennoble mankind to the goodness like this 
That breathes in thy song of the splendors of 

bliss ! 
Go heighten thy numbers and sing unto 

earth 
The charm of His being, the glow of His 

worth, 
Whose sacrifice only can give unto men 
The fact of the fancy entrancing thy ken ! 



Thou wonderful One by the prophets 

foretold, 
Thou Christ of the sages and singers of old, 
O hasten the dawn of the time without tears, 
The blessed, the golden, the beautiful years, 
When Doubt shall be banished and all of his 

fears. 
When Love from his exile shall come to his 

throne. 
And Peace shall be regnant and warring 

unknown; 
When men shall thirst only for waters of 

truth 



66 " O BEAUTIFUL VISION " 

And, drinking, discover the fountain of youth, 
And even those destined to sin from their 

birth 
Shall wake unto goodness and sing in the 

earth. 
Where deserts, rejoicing, shall blossom and 

yield 
Abundance to equal the long cultured field ! 
O hasten, Thou Gracious, the time without 

tears, 
The blessed, the golden, the beautiful years, 
When every one gladly shall copy Thy worth 
And the splendors of bliss shall dawn on the 

earth! 



CONTRAST 



111. 



CLARE. 



A RAVEN folds his wings 
Where wild the river sings 
A deep, unceasing dirge ; 
And, chiming with the surge, 
And sadder than the song, 
The bird, the whole day long, 
Cries forth from pines that sigh 
Beneath November's sky ! 
Yet vain the chant, how vain 
The whole commingled strain, 
To give a full relief, 
Or even lessen grief, 
When over loved ones slain. 
Bereaved hearts complain 
That woman false should prove 
To constancy of love. 
In vain the pine trees sigh. 
And bird and river try 
To tell their blessings fled 
Who mourn their Roderick dead. 
For he such joy had given, 
To them he seemed from heaven. 



70 



CLARE 

But came a fateful day 
To sweep their hopes away ! 
Protecting angels ! spare 
The earth from more like Clare, 
Who lit, to quench, the fires 
Of love's supreme desires. 
Joyed o'er the fading glow. 
Laid then the altar low. 
And gloried in the guilt 
To wreck the temple built 
Of peace, by hope, above 
The silver shrine of love. 
And these in ruin say 
How sad that fateful day. 
Betrothed from her own choice. 
To make his heart rejoice 
Who faithfully and well 
Had loved, by message fell 
Clare put his joy to rout 
And ruthless blotted out 
The star that makes men glad 
And, failing, drives them mad. 



At middle of the night, 

When hope had borne such blight 



CLARE 



71 



'Twere midnight were it noon, 

November were it June ! 

Doubt's night, when 'gainst despair, 

Worst fiend of all that are, 

The lover long had striven, 

At midnight, demon-driven — 

He knew not what he did ! 

Blame him ? O Heaven forbid ! 

And Heaven their hearts sustain 

Who mourn their Roderick slain. 

And yet they bravely keep 

Life's course while still they weep. 

And braver than to live, 

The sorrowing ones forgive 

The cruelty of art 

That broke a lover's heart 

And drove him to the deed 

For which their hearts must bleed 

Throughout the desert years, 

And they shed bitter tears 

O'er one with sweetest worth 

That ever perfumed earth, 

O'er one whom traitor gave 

To an untimely grave. 



CLARE 

So of this sadness voiceful surge 

Of river sang, and so the dirge 

Of pines, and all the winds that blew, 

Told what no yeoman was but knew, 

No dullest vision but could see 

Was useless here more witchery. 

Yet here, where seem the rocks in tears 

And giant oaks to thrill with fears, 

The artful Clare dissembles pain 

Of grieving love o'er lover slain, 

Till some repenting scorn they gave, 

Of feigning Clare her pardon crave. 

And speak in tones that fall like rain 

On thirsty herbs of fevered plain ! 

The hint of wish to fare away 

They gently chide, and press to stay, 

And beg a frequent friendly word 

By postman fleet or carrier bird. 

Then, flushing fine from their caress 

Who pray celestial graciousness 

The grief-rent heart of Clare to bless, 

The^queen of arts that did not fail 

Goes forth to quest in other vale ! 

How many there her arts reward 
The song were weighted to record. 



CLARE 



73 



Yet many 'twas, and there, of all 
Entranced, but one too brave to fall. 
This Donald was, blithe, wise and strong, 
From land of heather and of song — 
So gallant, unobtrusive, good, 
'Twere naught to read the noble blood 
Descended from some hardy clan 
Whose valor back to Wallace ran, 
And blended, in the days of eld. 
With might the glorious Bruces held. 
Discerning Scot, as Scots are born. 
With inner sight to ken and warn, 
He read her arts and read to scorn, 
Aud tossed a calm, derisive " nay," 
And said, as needless 'twere to say, 
" Fair one, withhold the huntsman's horn, 
Nor urge thy steed the chase forlorn. 
Although thine arrows oft have slain, 
To speed them here again were vain. 
Till easier game thine eyes shall see 
Before thee, queen of archery ! " 



Defeated once, but hopeful still, 
The artful is victorious till. 



74 CLARE 

Returning where her course begun, 
Art wins sgain where erst it won. 
Inbreathing, from the airs that fleet 
And from the souls her arts defeat, 
New qualities of woman's power 
To add to her abundant dower. 
Audacious grows the conquering Clare, 
Till, daring sacred precincts where 
The ashes loved of Roderick sleep. 
And bowed bereavement comes to weep, 
She startles from affection's prayer 
The kin and comrades faithful there — 
Yet artful so they near believe 
Her artfulness, that would deceive 
Almost the angels of the skies, 
So saintly seem her sophistries ! 
Assuming role of mourner, too, 
Who sorrows more than others do. 
She comes in tears and tearful goes, 
Returns in tears and plants a rose, 
And tarries oft in practice there, 
To learn the art to feign a prayer ? 



Thus once from dawn to evening star, 
When stranger fared who came from far. 



CLARE 



75 



From England's coast, in quest of fame, 
From England's coast, with Albion's 

name. 
Though great his English consequence 
And all sufficient for defence 
Against most pleasures aimed to try 
To swerve from his endeavors high, 
It was not proof against the Clare 
Discovered thus by Albion there, 
A lovely grief alone at prayer ! 



If power there be in woman's smiles. 
How thrice bewitching are the wiles 
Of woman tremulous with fears. 
Of woman grieving unto tears. 
And charming if the grief sincere, 
Her sorrow feigned more cause for fear, 
When greater than the true appear 
The acted sigh, and look, and tear. 



Tell not the story, though 'tis brief, 
Of Albion won by woman's grief, 



76 CLARE 



So fully won that those who warned 

He heeded not till charmer scorned. 

Tell not the tale, though briefly said, 

Of Albion loving, Albion dead, 

Self-slain because refused by Clare, 

The charming grief he found at prayer.. 

How great the woes of woman due 

At Roderick's grave and Albion's, too ! 

At hint of day she weeps by one, 

By other with the setting sun ! 

But yonder, poised on buoyant wings. 

An angel messenger, who sings : 

" Fair one and false, inconstant Clare, 

'Twere ill for one fromi upper air 

For once a woman's mind to taint 

With words that any vices paint 

To which her cruelties have driven 

Good men whose virtues, sweet to heaven, 

Bloomed fragrant on the airs of earth 

With odors of celestial worth ! 

And who shall tell the griefs that crazed 

Till calmest minds erratic blazed, 

Then sank forever in the night 

Of deepest hopelessness of blight ! 

Or who describe ihe crimson tide 

Where love, defeated, rashly died ! 



CLARE 77 

Although the busy following years 
Of triumphs won through causing tears, 
May for the moment thrust aside 
Remembrance of the first who died 
To whom, in plighting troth, she lied, 
Not long doth Clare forget, I ween. 
The color of the tragic scene 
When he went out a darkened way. 
Not even Clare forgets that day — 
Not even Clare, where'er she stray. 
Not even Clare doth long forget 
The sadness of the sun that set 
When first a victim of her slight 
Rushed, wild despairing, into night ! 

*' But that dark night shall have a morn, 

O Clare, who didst his pleading scorn, 

A morn when thou from night shall see 

His spirit in felicity, 

High mated in that country where 

No one like thee shall ever dare, 

O fair, inconstant, cruel Clare ! 

*' Forgiven by his gracious kin 
Thy keenest cruelty of sin, 



78 CLARE 

Straight from his death, all unoppressed, 

Thou faredst forth on other quest, 

To win again, again to prove 

Thy sure inconstancy of love. 

And now, although in pride arrayed 

And flushing from achievements made, 

Thou comest to dissemble here 

The power to shed a truthful tear. 

And try the feat of feigning, Clare, 

The awe and agony, of prayer, 

To aid thee sorrowing love to feign, 

That should another lover gain 

For thee to crush, to see his pain ! 

Then thou wouldst drink his being up 

And toss aside the broken cup 

That was a faithful lover's self, 

As but the pence of beggar's pelf, 

And forth to other conquest fare, 

Inconstant and insatiate Clare ! 

Responsive to thy nature's call, 

Here Albion gave to thee his all. 

Drank thou his soul to thy delight, 

And all his power, to give thee might. 

Drank thou with that high ecstasy 

That speaks a woman's liberty ; 

And then, the consummation done, 



CLARE 79 

Thou, cruel, fair, inconstant one, 
With might he gave didst giver slay, 
And say to all his pleadings nay — 
Thy victor soul to steel didst turn 
And Albion from thy presence spurn ; 
And alternated back to prayer, 
Still other souls to charm and snare ! 
Nor wouldst thou rest until thine arts 
Had snared and drunk a thousand hearts, 
That each increased the art of Clare 
By thousand fold of power to snare, 
And all the kingliest of the earth. 
Mistaking artfulness for worth. 
Should rave in eloquence of praise 
Of thine enrapturing ways, 
Or cringe, meek suppliants for thy smiles, 
And, for them rivals by thy wiles. 
Should die: in duels for thine hand 
Till rashness reddened every land ! 
With airs to sigh a deep refrain 
And stars in tears above the slain 
That cumbered every plain 
From northmost to Antarctic main, 
And mighty angels trembling o'er 
The prodigality of gore 
From Orient to western shore, 



8o CLARE 



And saints, forgetting bliss on high, 
To shudder with the peaceful sky — 
This, this, O Clare, were unto thee 
The acme of felicity ! 



" But thou shalt never capture more, 

Thy day of conquest now is o'er ! 

'Tis mine, fair one, the word to speak 

That, spoken, must life's tenure break. 

To some that word is but a boon ; 

Yet unto most it comes too soon. 

But seem it soon, or seem it late, 

Or mean it boon, or mean it fate. 

Or seem it just, or seem it fell. 

When missioned here, that word I tell ; 

For I, fair one, am Azrael. 

And here that word as dart I send 

Thine artful cruelty to end ! " 



The listener speechless, quivering stood. 
Then, reeling, staggered toward the flood. 
The spurning waves soon cast ashore. 
And fishers, finding, pitying bore 



CLARE 5t 

To lonely glen and buried there, 

Where meagre marble reads of Clare ! 

There weird the pensive pine trees sigh 

Beneath the gray November sky, 

And raven comes on sombre wings 

And gruesome to the river sings, 

That, chanting sad and ceaseless strain^ 

Bears burden to the distant main 

Of love that perfidy hath slain. 

And, mournful whispering with the dirge, 

Distinct above the river's surge. 

And sigh of pine and note of bird, 

The spirit of a voice is heard : 

" O maiden fair ^ do thou be true, 
Or thou shalt long thy falseness rue I 
O woman false, beware, beware ! 
Repent thy ways, give heed to Clare ! " 

O who shall tell the damning guilt 
Of her who wrecks ideal built — 
By her desired, by her inspired — 
By lover by her wishes fired. 
Than this there is no greater crime 
In all the round? of troubled time, 
Beneath the wide-beholding sun — 
Who murders love, hath murder done \ 



INTERLUDE. 

O ye compelled to be 

Acquaint with perfidy 

Till ye might think that Clare 

Was type of all the fair, 

Come where the roses rare, 

And clover blooming there, 

Shed forth upon the air 

The story of a love 

Whose fragrance cheers above 

The breath of sweetest June 

Of Summer's boon ! 



LILLIAN. 

Where sweet a shining river 

Flows singing to the sea 

And purls with charming cadence 

Where smiling landscapes be, 

Gemmed bright with pleasant mansions, 
That in perspective seem 



LILLIAN S^ 



The counterpart of castles 

That fill youth's brightest dream- 
There, sweet within the valley, 

In other days a scene 
That fills with choicest fragrance 

The years that intervene ! 



And for that scene the valley 

A finer verdure spreads 
When, cheering after winter, 

The May sun radiance sheds. 
And brighter flame and crimson 

And lovelier dun and gold 
The hardy mountain beeches 

And valley maples hold. 
When frost and autumn sunshine 

Their chemistry have done, 
In glorious completion 

Of work the spring begun. 



Dear vale of Metawampe ! 

Sweet by the sunrise shore 



84 LILLIAN 



Of thy majestic river, 

Delightful evermore, 
An arbor was where Lillian, 

Who Leon promise made 
But later wrecked the plighting, 

By unwise kindred swayed, 
Returned, at last, repentant, 

To bid his hope relive, 
And there so bravely humble. 

Knelt asking him forgive. 



And quick above the sadness 

That darkened weary years 
And weighted him with sorrow 

Exceeding words and tears, 
There broke serenest radiance 

That ever augured day, 
Or woke a heart to courage, 

Or lit a wanderer's way. 



With gentle hand. 
In fairyland, 
To thoughts sublime she led him'; 



LILLIAN 85 

With grandest views, 

And nectar dews, 
And heavenly fruitage, fed him ; 

From field and sky 

And mountain high, 
Inspiring lessons read him ; 

With tender art, 

From her true heart, 
A sincere promise said him, 

Naming a day, 

A month away, 
A happy day to wed him. 



That good day came 
With sweetest fiame 

The Orient ever lighted, 
To signalize 
The golden ties 

Of loving hearts united ! 
Day sweet with airs 
That banished cares 

And to high thoughts incited ; 
Day spanned with blue, 
The whole day through ! 



86 LILLIAN 

As if all wrongs were righted 
And sang the larlc 
Till all birds dark 

Had flown from earth affrighted ! 



The honeymoon 
Could not end soon 

Of two so nobly mated, 

But still would shine 
Were skies benign, 

Or if to grief storms fated. 



Their love kept new, 
For each soul grew ; 

And each the other aided 

Right things to know 
To help each grow. 

And love's rose never faded ! 



Sweet vale of Metawampe ! 

Therein, since that dear day, 



LILLIAN 87 

Auspicious time for trysting 

The silver nights of May. 

For, then, from favoring Heaven, 
Swift where the lovers wait. 

Thrilled with the thoughts surpassing 
All else however great, 



Fly ministrants commissioned 

To utter words that save 
From cowardice the lover 

And make the maiden brave. 
And when the pledge is spoken 

To crown love's high emprise, 
They soar from Metawampe, 

To tell the waiting skies ! 



IDYLS OF FREEDOM 



IV. 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE, 

O STARS, what history 
It has been yours to see 
Enacted here, -since m^n, 
Crown of creation's plan, 
His wanderings began — 
Since to his pristine joy 
He added an alloy 
That forth a rover sent 
Him, fired with discontent. 
Say since, with Eden lost. 
The fateful bounds he crossed, 
How dear his straying cost ! 
Still, while in wretched plight, 
He was not hopeless quite. 
Nor rayless was his night. 



Stars that have kindly shone 
On paths his feet have gone- 
Than downward, let us hope. 
Onward more, and up — 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE 



Aid Still his wish and quest 
For truth, and peace and rest. 
Still from the blue above 
Shine where he wars to prove 
His patriotic love, 
And, dying, asks you tell 
The ages that he fell 
To foil the tyrant's hand 
And bless his native land. 
And tell, as tell ye must, 
O stars, for stars are just, 
Prom what great sacrifice 
-AH others do arise. 
Tell what, foreseen, inspired. 
And what, accomplished, fired, 
The patriotic heart to live 
Por liberty and give 
His life to make men free. 
And aid, O stars, to see 
That highest liberty. 
•Oives equal weight of care, 
Gives unto each his share 
Of burdens all must bear ; 
That liberty, if boon, 
Used wrongly, cometh soon 
To license, that is not 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE 93^ 

True liberty, but blot 
On the historic page, 
A hindrance to the age. 



This life, this sacrifice, 
O stars, from which arise 
The heavenly blessings given 
And hope of more in heaven — 
This life of hope for man, 
Ye saw as it began. 
Ye saw its teeming day, 
O stars, and sunset ray. 
And deathly chill of night, 
And hint at last of light. 
Ye saw the glorious morn 
Of grace and peace adorn 
The mountain heights of time 
And shine to every clime, 
To make all life sublime ! 
A star 'twas guided them 
Who fared to Bethlehem ; 
And at cerulean poise 
It sentineled their joys. 
As o'er the Savior born, 



«>94 THE GREAT SACRIFICE 

Rejoicing till the morn, 
They mused on what should be 
His wondrous history. 
Stars gave the warning dream 
Of Herod's hellish scheme 
And guided, then, the flight 
To Egypt through the night. 
And o'er the child returned 
The stars in gladness burned. 



The stars rejoiced the boy 
And study gave and joy, 
As through the years he grew 
"To all the ages knew — 
Till wondering sages gazed 
-Adoring and amazed. 
Stars cheered the Christ who prayed 
In lonely mountain glade. 
And sang their joy to see 
The helpful ministry 
•Of Him of Galilee. 
And when his followers slept 
Ye stars in pity wept ; 
-And, weeping, wondered ye 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE 95 

At the sublimity 
Of sad Gethsemane ! 
And when at Calvary 
The sun refused to shine, 
Your stellar beams were sign 
That Christ, the slain, should rise, 
Completed sacrifice. 
Triumphant to the skies ! 



Ye stars that wondering saw 
His answer to the law 
Who for the sinful died 
And poured the precious tide 
Of His great life, to give 
The sinful chance to live — 
Ye stars who heard the word 
Sublimest ever heard, 
That Jesus at His death 
Spoke with His dying breath, 
To say the work was done, 
The victory was won— 
From that sublimity, 
That matchless agony. 
All greatness doth proceed. 



96 AMERICA 

Thence every noble deed, 
Thence all unselfishness, 
Thence every pulse to bless 
That helps the patriot die, 
Without the question why, 
For home and liberty. 



AMERICA. 

/^^N days and deeds sublime 

^-^ Tl at gem this western clime^ 

O stars of Freedom, shine, 

And shed your beams benign 

Where Concord bridge was won, 

And rustic Lexington — 

And Bunker Hill declared. 

And Bennington, how fared 

The foes of liberty 

Who warred against the free. 



Shine where the great and good 
With high solicitude, 



AMERICA 97 



In meekness knelt to pray 
To Heaven to drive away 
The foreign foes and give 
The country chance to live. 
How humble and how^ great, 
How fit to found a state, 
Was he who knelt that day, 
At Valley Forge, to pray ! 
And may his .land remain 
The place of all good gain 
And Freedom's own domain, 
The home and resting place 
Of bravery and of grace, 
Of greatness and all worth — 
The paradise of earth ! 



Though truth the charm will break. 
Still best the truth to speak. 
Here, where 'twas general boast 
That this was Freedom's coast. 
Were human beings chained, 
While Selfishness explained 
That slavery was right. 
And those who saw the plight 
That Liberty was in, 



98 AMERICA 

By league with such a sin, 
And dared rebuke the wrong, 
That still was growing strong, 
While grew the nation weak 
To danger that 'twould break, 
Were stigmatized as fools 
Beyond discretion's rules. 
But in these later days, 
The scoffers dare the praise 
That radicals were wise 
And fit to canonize 
For the sublimest skies ! 



How cursed this sin the land 
We came to understand 
When Donelson was need 
And Fredericksburg, and greed 
Of rough hewn havoc made 
On Sherman's master raid 
Of horse and infantry 
From inland to the sea ! 
And need to prove our liege 
To liberty was siege 
Of Vicksburg and the shock 
Of " Chickamauga's Rock," 



AMERICA 99 

Grim Thomas of the build 
To name for Caesar's guild. 
So Grierson's reckless dash, 
Discreel in that 'twas rash ; 
And Farragut in the shrouds, 
And Hooker in the clouds, 
And Ellsworth first to die, 
And gallant Lyon — why 
So early sent to heaven ! 
And why McPherson given, 
And thousands, thousands more ! 
How runneth up the score, 
Through scenes ot din and gore, 
To Gettysburg, sublime 
Through all the years of time ! 



What tongue can tell, what pen, 

The fate of prisoned men 

Who, doomed to the ill 

Of Andersonville, 

Learned the tortures that spell 

A new name for hell ! 

And who can count their tears 

And warring hopes and fears, 

Who mourned their loved ones there. 



lOO AMERICA 

Or slain in conflict, where, 
Though glorious thus to fall 
For country and for all 
That's dear, and true, and high, 
'Twas fearful, still, to die ! 
And hard was it to know 
That with the slaughter, slow 
Moved the cause of right 
And darkened down the night 
Of doubt, with scarce a ray 
To hint of coming day. 
But rose a lustrous star 
When he led on the war 
Whose calm, courageous way 
Of hero in affray. 
Assured, at once, a morn. 
And was the sign to warn 
The foemen of defeat 
Their cause was sure to meet. 



Now once and three times three. 

At Appomattox tree. 

Give every one to all 

Who heeded Freedom's call 

And marched with Grant, to hew 



AMERICA lOI 



The hard-fought journey through 
The Wilderness, to see 
The dawn of victory. 



But who shall sing to tell 

Their deeds who fought and fell 

In all the hard canipaigns, 

Who equal epic strains 

For those whose crimson stains 

Full thrice a hundred plains, 

-And reddens bloody years, 

Which make them high compeers 

Of all the brave that Time 

Hath brought to wreath and rhyme! 



Let gratitude be given 
In joyful song to Heaven ; 
Aye, shout and sing again, 
Good citizens, that when 
The nation was in dole 
A man of prophet soul 
Was sent to meet our need. 



I02 AMERICA 

A man inspired to read 
The meaning ot the times 
The country for its crimes 
Was going through, — this man, 
With genius fit to plan 
And brave enough to act. 
Made thus his vision fact, 
Wielding the nation's might 
For mercy and the right. 
And breaking, at a stroke, 
The bondman's galling yoke. 



Good stars, your radiance shed 

On paths where Lincoln led 

Through all those years of strife 

Up to the higher life 

Of Freedom and of peace 

And all the good increase 

That makes these states combined 

The envy of mankind ! 



IN OTHER LANDS. 



/^^ OOD stars, what prophet ken 
^-^ Had Aztec Juarez, when 
For liberty he fought 
Against the foe who sought 
To bind with Spanish chain 
The Mexican in train 
Of papal Rome, to slave 
Subservient where the brave 
Descendants of the sun 
Their long career had run. 
Free as the airs that fanned 
Their lovely native land. 
Well ye rejoiced, to see 
Where foreign tyranny 
Had reigned, superior rise. 
To crown the high emprise 
Of Juarez with success 
And so mankind to bless, 
The fair republic bright 
With promise for the right 
Of patriots everywhere. 
For each hath right to share 
Each country of the free. 
Wherever dwelleth he. 



I04 IN OTHER LANDS 

Still Juarez only did 

As high examples bid — 

Through thirty years of blood, 

When that brave Swede withstood 

1 he papal powers combined, 

Who sought on all mankind 

To place the Latin yoke — 

Gustavus brave, who broke 

The bondage long and sore 

For northmen evermore. 

He drove the power of Rome 

From church, and court, and home, 

Wherein the people sing. 

To crown Gustavus king ! 

And cadence of the song 

The southland doth prolong. 

Where well Emmanuel strove 

And Garibaldi's love 

Was given for Italy, 

Mankind and liberty. 



And Magyars, whose Kossuth 
For country and for truth 
Was sacrifice, may raise 
To favoring Heaven their praise 



IN OTHER LANDS IO5 

For his grand life, and twine 
The wreath and pray the Nine 
To sing to full import 
That high in Austrian court 
The Magyars reign, whom erst 
The tyrant Austrians cursed ! 



How bright the stars that look 
On Scotland's famous brook 
And bid the ages learn 
That Bruce of Bannockburn 
Was Caledonia's pride ! 
Shine where her sons defied, 
At Flodden field, the foe 
That laid her banner low. 
Yet in defeat were strong 
To height of grandest song. 
Beam kind on every glen 
Known to his foot and ken. 
That kingliest of men, 
The Wallace of the Eld, 
Whom, then, ye stars beheld 
And sang him worthy praise 
Of all the future days. 



Io6 IN OIHER LANDS 



Shine, stars, with beams benign 
On scene of deeds divine, 
Where Winkelried the brave. 
His Switzerland to save. 
Threw on the Austrian steel 
His mighty rage of zeal 
And struck in death the blow 
To break the serried foe. 
His followers, raining blows 
Where grand his courage rose, 
Thus turned the tide and day 
Against the cruel fray 
Of those who sought t' enslave 
The Switzer patriots brave, 
Whom God's own mountains gave 
That love of liberty 
That fits men to be free. 



And evermore shall ye, 
Bright stars of liberty, 
Rejoice to shine upon 

The field where Cromwell won. 

At Marston Moor, the day 

And stemmed the tyrant's sway. 



IN OTHER LANDS I07 

Till full at Naseby, then, 
Where royal Charles again 
Marshaled his hosts, the band 
Of patriots dared withstand 
The legions of the king ; 
And all the years shall sing, 
To let ihe future know. 
They routed him to show 
That foreign he, and foe. 
Though native born — for he 
Loved not true liberty. 



The truth alone gives rate, 

The citizen's estate, 

A country and a place, 

Fraternity and race. 

Alien to truth, a man 

Nor country hath, nor clan, 

Though castled well and crowned 

With choicest treasures found 

In late or olden times. 

Through west or Orient climes. 

Aye, foreign he, and poor, 

And sick, though mount and moor 



Io8 IN OTHER LANDS 



Afford their gold for wealth 
And myrrhs to bless his health. 
Not loving truth, then he 
Shall poor and homeless be, 
Though heraldry declare 
That ancient lineage rare 
Makes him the rightful heir 
To every land and throne, 
And though the people own 
The purple of his power, 
Rejoicing in his dower 
And seeking bards to sing 
Him bishop, lord and king ! 
But rhyme they ne'er so well, 
The bards who seek to tell 
An untruth in a song 
And sing success of wrong — 
Some Croesus toast for wealth 
That came alone by stealth, 
And hymn the tyrant's might 
As given by heavenly right — 
Will sing but meagre praise. 
And, faltering in the lays 
Whose labored lines confess 
They sing from selfishness. 



IN OTHER LANDS 



109 



They'll rave to furious stress 
Of prayer to Power to bless, 
When Truth alone gives theme 
Befitting poet's dream. 



Yet strange contrasts arise, 

Some royal mysteries — 

A king to virtue known, 

Yet who could make his throne. 

By tricks that must belong 

The hellish arts among. 

The anchor of a wrong 

That should have scourge of'song. 

The very rage of rhyme, 

To blast to future time ! 

The Charles whom Cromwell fought. 

True to his home, was naught 

But false to native land 

Though promising, his hand 

Withheld the needed good 

He pledged to those who stood 

For liberty and right. 

For these did Cromwell fight ; 

For these he overthrew 



no IN OTHER LANDS 

The Stuart king and slew 
The false one of the throne. 
And by the act was shown 
In England evermore — 
A truth the wide world o'er, 
And as the sunlight plain — 
The right of kings to reign, 
Original in heaven. 
Is to the governed given, 
By them to be transferred. 
In their installing word. 
To those their love shall say 
The kingly traits display. 
Would Cromwell had remained, 
Preventing crime thai stained 
Bright Albion's sovran name. 
By other Charles who came. 
The Charles who ever wrought 
Injustice and who thought 
Of self alone, and sought 
Delight in splendid sin 
And seemed possessed to win. 
By elegance of shame, 
An ever florid fame 
Unto his royal name ! 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA. 



T F ill the theme befits 

To sirg of Austerlitz, 
If vain to weep a while 
By lone Helena's isle, 
If cold, to some, such theme 
For patriotic dream. 
In that the Corsican 
Fought not for fellow-man. 
But strove alone for fame 
For his imperial name — 
O would some one as rod 
Of an avenging God, 
Arise, who, sent by wrath 
Of Heaven, should cleave a path 
Through Tyranny's domains 
To far Siberia's plains. 
And break the prison bars 
Of victims of the czars ! 



The cause demands a man 
Serener, grander than 



TI2 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 

The dreaded Corsican ? 

May one with like strong hand 

And genius to command, 

Arise — some leader born 

Under the star of morn, 

Some one whose shining worth 

Shall win the best of earth 

To highest hope and prayer 

For Heaven's especial care, 

i\nd win good gallant men 

To join his flag, whose ken 

At once, from far, can see 

The day of victory — 

The men with might to win 

The boon their faith hath seen. 



O, chieftain of the skies ! 
And Freedom's cause, arise, 
And, panoplied for wars. 
Go guided by the stars 
That favoring shone 
Above Napoleon, 
In that sublime advance 
From his admiring France 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA' II3 

That made the Russias quake 
And all the kingdoms shake ! 
Stars, they, to aid to see 
The way to victory ; 
Stars that would lustrous burn, 
To light the grand return 
Of victors from the fray 
Where justice won the day. 



Not so the march when Ney 

Fared on the frozen way, 

To cheer his leader back 

Along the winter track. 

With remnant of his host, 

To mourn the prize they lost, 

A city burned to ban 

The mighty Corsican. 

Him Russia dared not fight. 

But put to sorry plight 

By burning roof and bread 

That should have housed and fed 

The host, who froze or starved 

By thousands ere they carved. 

With Bonaparte and Ney 



114 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 

To France their pilgrim way. 
But those engaged 
In warring waged 
To break the dungeon bars 
Of prisoned worth, ye stars 
Would good birds send to feed, 
Unto their fullest need. 
With manna of the Heaven 
That bread hath ever given 
To those who well have striven, 
Through hard or favored fight. 
In furtherance of right. 



If Moscow burned again 
'Twould light the prisoned men 
From durance hard to flee 
To hope and liberty, 
The men whose dungeon bars 
Are legacy of czars, 
Kings whose oppression is 
Acme of tyrannies ! 
Commanding those away 
In bondage sore to stay, 
Whose glances have told. 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA II5 



Or a breath over bold, 

That the fancies they hold 

Slight hindrances are 

To the wish of a czar ! 

Dooming banishment 

For the mildest intent 

Of the patriot heart ! 

O tyrant ! what art 

Of what spirit malign 

Of the demons is thine ! 

How strange that czars should ban 

Those whom but easy plan 

Of right would lead to own 

Allegiance to the throne 

And give their life to prove 

Their loyalty of love 

And interest in the fame 

Of Alexander's name ! 

But heeding not the cries 

That move the pitying skies 

And make the nations weep, 

These Tartar tyrants keep 

Their hand of tyranny 

Against all liberty. 



O, when Sarmatia's brave 
With Kosciusko gave 



H6 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 



Most valorous blows to save 
Their country from the grave 
That fierce tyrannic might 
Had dug for Truth and Right, 
Say, Heaven of justice, say, 
Why did Thy vengeance stay 
From smiting down her foes ! 
O! when to Thee arose 
Their patriotic cry, 
Why, Heaven of pity, why 
Should fail thy mighty arm 
To shield their land from harm ! 



And fell Sarmatia, then ! 

And her heroic men, 

Whose patriotic worth 

Had brightened all the earth. 

Were graced with exiles' chains 

And scourged across the plains 

Afar to foreign strand. 

And there were given brand 

Befitting felon band ; 

Aye. there were given rate 

Meaner than murderer's fate, 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA I I? 

Whose hands the blood had spilt 
Of parricidal guilt ! 
Yet, there, the scorn of slaves, 
Do these Sarmatian braves 
Display, despite the gloom 
Of their Siberian doom, 
The rare sweet quality 
Of fitness to be free ! 



Stay, Angel of the Book 

Of Record, stay, and look ! 

For this is far from all 

Of Poland's direful thrall 

From Russia's might, whose whole 

Of tyrant dirt and dole 

Hath hue of Herod's crime, 

And seems of Nero's time ! 

Fair women sent to pine 

In dark and noisome mine ! 

Or sent with felon's chain 

To walk the weary plain 

Where mercy hath no rate. 

Where hunger hath no sate 



Il8 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 

But cup and crust of hate ! 
Or hath she darker fate 
That is so worse than death 
It is not given breath ! 



Nor is this all, for there, 

Condemned to exile's fare, 

The patriot's children know 

Maturity of woe ! 

O angel ! and ye stars ! 

Enduring still the czars ! 

What Herod edict this ! 

Ukase to blot the bliss 

From childhood's heart of joy, 

That never knew alloy 

Of ill, nor thought to stray 

In sin's forbidden way, 

And so most rightfully 

The heir of liberty, 

Entitled to be free 

As nature's minstrelsy 

Of zephyrs, birds, and rills 

That sing to freedom's hills ! 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA I I9 

Read not the story through, 
Read not of Finn or Jew, 
Read not, though each have felt 
The blows the tyrants dealt 
To emphasize ttieir hate 
Of freedom's good estate. 
Enough the monster crime 
That chilled Sarmatia's clime, 
Enough what Poland braved 
Ere Russian hate enslaved, 
Enough the robber rout 
That blotted Poland out ! 
Enough is one page 
Of Tyranny's rage ! 
Enough is the brief 
Of exiles in grief ! 



O ye who are given, 
As natives of heaven, 
The quality high 
Of grace of the sky, 
That maketh secure 
Where none could endure 
Devoid of the dower 
Of heavenly power, 



I20 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 



Could even the might 
Of sons of the light 
Fit an angel to bear, 
If, gifted so rare. 
An angel should dare, 
To con the dread score 
Of pillage and gore 
That causes the wail 
From Vistula's vale ! 
Or ponder the woes 
The banished one knows 
In Tyranny's chains 
On far away plains ! 



O ! the desolate strand 
Where Hate turns the land 
Into barrenest sand ! 
While Doubt freezes there 
Till even the air 
Is chill with despair 
And dread as the breath 
Of the spectre of death ! 



In spite of the chill 
That freezes to kill. 
There facile ones fly 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 121 

From nethermost sky, 

Who, artful in eye 

And skillful to lie, 

From seeming at first 

On mission accurst 

From regions the worst, 

Soon look to repent 

Of evil intent, 

And, merciful bent. 

From sinister gleams 

Quick vary to beams 

Of a tv^inkling that seems 

The hopefulest ray 

Of the splendors of day ! 

And the lustre that glints 

Deceives as the hints 

That rosiest morn 

The waste shall adorn. 

Where no morning can come 

To the castaway's gloom ! 



There swift from below, 

There joyful at woe. 

There charmed with a moan, 



T22 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 



There rapt o'er a groan, 
There others have flown, 
Who missioned of Night, 
Who buoyant at blight, 
Who sportive at chains 
Harsh clanking o'er plains 
Where Tyranny reigns, 
Sing gleeful at cries 
Of anguish that rise 
From the victims of hate 
In the bondage of fate. 
Begirt with their dead 
And trembling with dread 
Of still deeper gloom 
To darken their doom ! 
But have harpers of hell 
The numbers to tell 
The gloom of a cell 
Of Saghalien, where dwell 
The good and the brave 
Whom tyrants enslave. 
Or the murk of the mines 
Where hope never shines. 
No, never, through years 
Of the saltest of tears ! 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA I23 

Read not the story through ; 
One page alone will do ! 
One page alone of dread, 
One page with terror red, 
One page of hot tears shed, 
One page of that despair 
Which fades the eye and hair 
Saps e'en the power to cry. 
Gives a hot thirst to die. 
Kills the smile on the face, 
Blots the last look of grace, 
Blots the last mental trace, 
Stills the hand from device, 
Chills the blood into ice, 
And the nerves into bone. 
And the heart into stone ! 

O what chieftain would dare 
In the lists with despair, 
Though grandly he fare 
From tournaments where 
The giants, aflame 
With the passion for fame, 
Contend in the fray 
Of chivalry's day ! 
Aye, came he away 



124 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 

Unhewn and complete 

And longing to meet 

Far fiercer than those 

He found to oppose, 

What victor would dare 

To cope with despair ? 

How dead the heart, how dead, 

With hope forever fled ! 

And yet 'tis so quick 

That it trembles at tick 

Of the seconds of time 

And the pulsing of rhyme 

Of the song that keeps tune 

With the cadence of June ! 

Though despairing till dead. 

Yet it trembles with dread 

At the tenderest song 

That is wafted along 

Over clover and corn 

On the breath of the morn ! 

And it quivers and quakes 

At a zephyr that shakes 

But as gently as jar 

Of the beams of a star 

That in rose-scented hours, 

Bright glancing in bowers. 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 125 

Responds to the flowers 
That smile, to invite 
The cheer of the light 
Of the beauty of heaven, 
In stellar beams given. 



Aye, there's never a heart 
That's alive to all art 
And is beating in chime 
With nature's sweet rhyme 
But if conquered by fear 
Would shudder to hear 
Even music of waves 
Of the streamlet that laves 
The myrtle banks sweet 
Where fairy ones meet, 
In elfin land grove, 
To warble of love ! 
Aye, held by despair, 
No victim could bear 
Breath from elfin land, where 
But a breath of the air 

Of the earth would displace 
The planets that trace 



126 ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA 



Round the fairy land sun 
The courses they run. 
What then is the fate 
Of the victims of hate 
Of the despot who reigns 
O'er the Russian domains, 
And his victims doth cast 
To the pitiless blast 
Of northland, or wills 
That in Caucasus hills 
They shall dig till they die, 
And dishonored shall lie 
In a far away grave 
Too mean for a slave ! 

O Heaven ! whose lurid star 
Maddens to might and war, 
When thou shalt undertake 
The Russian yoke to break, 
Say, Heaven of justice, say. 
What blood can ever pay 
The wrong to Poland done 
By those whose ravage won 
By Vistula's fair tide, 
That, often crimson-dyed 
From noblest patriot slain. 
Goes moaning to the main ! 



ARRAIGNMENT OF RUSSIA I 27 



Ye thrice ten thousand dead, 
Whose blood the Cossacks shed 
Tn homes of Prap^a fair, 
How eloquent your prayer — 
A plea to Heaven to aid 
A land in ruin laid ! 
And emphasis of gore 
Hath this from thousands more 
Where Warsaw's reddened plains, 
That Freedom's ichor stains, 
And Cracow's crimsoned sod, 
Still wail their plaints to God ! 
Fair Wanda's mountain moans, 
Responsive to the groans, 
And Dnieper makes her cry. 
For Dniester to reply ; 
And from the Don to San, 
Rebuking Russian ban. 
Blood red the waters gleam 
Of each Sarmatian stream ! 
Whichever way it track. 
To Baltic or the Black, 
Sad, sad each river flows, 
A requiem of woes, 
From Poland to the seas, 
That chant her miseries ! 



VISION AND PROPHECY. 

/^~^N Ural hils it came, 

^-^ A tongue of prophet flame, 
A burning thither sent 
From out the firmament 
Of justice, love and truth, 
And everlasting youth. 
And thus the fervid voice : 
" O tyrant ! have thy choice 
To turn to righteousness 
And teach thy hands to bless — 
Repent the despot's crime, 
Worst cruelty of time, 
Or take the doom that falls 
Thereon — the mighty walls 
Of tyranny thrown down, 
The dimmed and wrested crown 
Of monarchs in defeat. 
With conscience to repeat 
To all the winds that fleet — 
' The tyrant's fate is meet ! ' " 
Thus, while the bright night heard, 
Swift flew the warning word 
And sought by westward star 



VISION AND PROPHECY 129 

The palace of the czar. 
There, round the festive board, 
His nobles and their lord 
Glowed o'er their ruddy wine, 
In toast of new design 
To make the exiles weep 
And keep the world asleep. 



But. stay, why trembles he? 
What vision doth he see ? 
No ghost in festive hall, 
No hand upon the wall, 
To make his pleasures pall. 
No fiend his eyes detect ; 
No peasant to suspect. 
Tried ministers attend, 
Full foot and horse defend 
The throne and citadel 
Where czar and kindred dwell. 
And, cordonned round the land, 
Grim guarding legions stand ! 
Yet pales the czar with dread ! 
He thinks assassins tread. 



130 VISION AND PROPHECY 

With blade athirst and blast, 
To drink his blood and cast, 
In atoms to the sky, 
The halls of tyranny ! 



The voice from Ural hills 

Flamed forth hath gone in thrills 

Of swiftest breezes blown 

Along the northern zone, 

And many leagues afar 

In palace of the czar 

With trembling terror fills. 

To consternation chills, 

The ruler of the land. 

And not invention planned 

To keep supreme at home 

His reign, if foes should come, — 

And not ambitious schemes 

That give him pleasant dreams 

Of other lands to gain. 

Of widening domain 

To great increase of dower. 

To boundlessness of power — 

Not one of these, nor all. 



VISION AND PROPHECY I31 

Can break the chilling thrall, 
And drive the fiends away 
That on his spirit prey ! 



And evermore shall cling 

Those fiends, and tear and sting, 

And for new vigor drink 

The ichor, black as ink, 

Of veins of tyranny 

That fed on liberty 

Through many, many years, 

Drank river floods of tears 

And jeered a thousand sneers 

At patriotic sighs 

Drawn by a czar's emprise ! 



After the burning spoke 
And round the echoes woke, 
Responsive to the doom 
The flame announced to come,- 
Soft blazed the voice of truth. 
In tones of tender ruth 
Of love's sweet firmament, 
A message eastward sent 



132 VISION AND PROPHECY 

By one appearing there 
From out the upper air, 
Who seemed to high emprise 
Commissioned by the skies, 
He wore that loveliness 
That doth high worth express 
In angel or in men 
Of angel mien and ken. 



Away on zephyrs borne, 
He came at tinge of morn 
To bleak Siberian strand. 
The northern demonland! 
Tliere imps abound in air 
Who give their constant care 
That when the tyrants die 
Some sprite of ill shall fly 
To convoy them to hell, 
Reporting there how well 
They have performed the work 
The monarch of the murk 
Assigns, and thus, how far 
They have obeyed the czar. 
From spirit of the sky 
'1 he imps affrighted fly. 



VISION AND PROPHECV' I33 

And well escaped his might, 
They pause them in their flight 
And hiss, in powerless ire, 
Their breath of spiteful fire, 
That freezes on the air. 
And now they backward fare. 
To see if stranger sprite 
Shall think him to alight. 
And soon he turns to fly, 
That bright one of the sky. 
His plumage to begrime, 
Down through the jagged rime 
Of rock where guardsmen pace, 
To keep the exile race. 
And this the word of cheer 
The toilers, listening hear : 
"Good patience, still, ye braves 
Condemned to fate of slaves ! 
Against Oppression's throne. 
The Mighty makes His own 
The cause of those who, long 
In suffering, still are strong." 
Glad on his herald tongue 
The delvers hopeful hung. 
Yet scarce could angel's cheer 
Dispel an exile's fear. 



134 VISION AND PROPHECY 

Forth then the voice of flame ; 

And soon a lovelier came — 

An angel with this word : 

" The message ye have heard 

Was told to me in heaven, 

Whence all good gifts are given. 

So strange 'twas thought 'twould seem^ 

So fanciful the dream, 

Another one was sent 

Attesting the intent 

Of powers above to bless 

With buoyance in duress 

And exodus from chains 

To Freedom's own domains." 



The angel ceased and drew 

A stylus forth of hue 

Of the cerulean blue 

And ruby stone and white, 

And straight began to write 

Upon the prison mine 

With deep cut lustrous sign. 

No words the delving said. 

But breathless watched and read 

And forth the angel fled. 



VISION AND PR(TPHECY 135 



Came then a third to say : 
" Toilers, ye have seen to-day 
Two of the seven prized most 
Of the selectest host 
Of all the armies bright 
Bannered in realms of light. 
Aflame with brightest star, 
That host ten thousand are, 
With place of honor given 
The thousand best of heaven, 
They who the most have blessed, 
As heaven's accounts attest, 
1 he sorrowing ones of earth, 
And honored most true worth. 
And those a hundred best 
Have placed before the rest. 
The hundred giving seven 
Most pleasing unto Heaven 
The highest, foremost place 
Of all the angel race. 
" And, of this number, one 
Is Uriel of the sun. 
And Raphael gracious is 
And given to ministries, 
And most sublimities 



136 VISION AND PROPHECY 



Hath missioned been to see, 
And most of misery. 
The first your boon to tell 
Was flaming Uriel, 
And Raphael who came 
To witness Uriel's flame 
And cheer with face benign 
The delvers in this mine. 



** Led Israfil the throng 

In that first Christmas song 

That told the waiting earth 

Of a Redeemer's birth. 

And two of the seven 

From out the weeping heaven 

Flown sad, in sympathy 

And wondering tears, to see 

The dread sublimity 

Of rugged Calvary, 

Stayed sentinels and kept 

The tomb where Jesus slept — 

The loveliest of the sky, 

Who gave himself to die. 



VISION AND PROPHECY 137 

And their rejoicing eyes 
Beheld the Savior rise 
And saw the earliest ray 
Of that first Easter day ! 



'* As, in God's economies, 

What once is true, forever is. 

And truth for angels holds for men, 

So, evermore, as when 

To watching spirits came 

The primal Easter flame. 

The best of honors given 

To man, before his heaven. 

He wins who faithful waits 

With Right through cruel fates. 

Who bides with Worth through shame 

Shall have a lustrous fame ; 

With Christ through night of scorn, 

The joy of Easter morn ! " 



Know this, ye troubled, know 
That in the hour of woe, 



138 VISION AND PROPHECY 

Some angel waits above 
Commissioned by the Love 
Supreme, to fly and prove 
. With blessings from the skies, 
That He is kind and wise 
And doth permit the stress, 
To give Him chance to bless 
And those who suffer, place 
To struggle into grace 
Of goodness and the dower 
Of perfectness of power. 
Whoso behaveth right. 
Whatever be his plight ; 
Whoever thinketh bright, 
Important, happy thing 
To say, or paint, or sing. 
Hath influence from the sky. 
And voice to ask him try 
To make both fine and strong 
The word, the tint, the song. 
Who heeds the first, gains more 
Of the celestial store 
That gives uplift from trite 
To new, from slough to height, 
From weakness unto might. 



VISION AND PROPHECY 139; 

From dryness, deadness, blight, 
To bud, and leaf, and bloom, 
That hint of Junes to come. 
O gracious boundlessness 
Of Heaven's power to bless ! 



Seen or invisible. 

As seemeth to ihem well, 

The spirits come to tell 

The words of wrath or love 

That emanate above. 

And, though alert to sounds 

And sights that vexed their rounds, 

The guardsmen of the mines. 

Sworn to the czar's designs, 

Saw not those whose emprise 

Was threatening from the skies. 

Though came they bright as stars 

To speak the doom of czars. 

But read the guards in mine 

The deeply-written sign, 

And sent a message far 

To citadel of czar. 

And he to frenzy flew, 

That quick to fury grew. 



140 VISION AND PROPHECY 

Imperial mandate ^iven, 
The royjil guards had striven 
The writing^ to erase. 
But none could yet efface 
Indictment graven there 
By one of upper air. 
And livid in that mine 
Fierce glistened still each line 
*' Unless the czars repent 
Before the firmament 
And ris^ht the wrong 

Their hate hath done so long^ 
For Poland's cup of gall 

The Russian throne must fall ! " 



The czar a chemist sent, 
Who with fierce caustics went, 
To eat the message out 
That so had put to rout 
The pleasure of the czar, 
And toiled from dawn to star 
With fiery rust and bar. 



VISION AND PROPHECY I4I 

Homeward the chemist flew, 
And this the message true : 
" No science can begin, 
Nor skill, the race to win — 
The words are burning in ! " 
Some straying peasant heard 
The courier's fateful word 
Reported to the lord 
Chief courtier of the king ; 
And all the people sing, 
And children join the din, 
" The words are burning in / " 



Again the man with bar 
And rust to please the czar. 
And tear the message out, 
Of which the people shout. 
And with his mission o'er. 
Reports he as before : 
" A span, a foot, a rod — 
Swift science doth but plod. 
The words do inward fly 
As missioned from the sky ! 



1^42 VISION AND PROPHECY 

In rage the monarch flew, 
The alchemist he slew, 
And sent another, still, 
With threat to chain and kill. 
Did he not burn or tear 
That message of despair. 
And w^ith him fared a guard 
That no one should retard. 
Nor scientist should flee, 
If unsuccessful he. 
Returned, he trembling said. 
As forth the guardsmen led 
Him, strongly held and bound. 
To slay if faithless found ; 
'' A foot, an ell, a rod — 
The message writ of God 
About a nation's sin 
Is further burning i?i ! " 
The guardsmen aim to fire ! 
The monarch cries, '' Retire 
With him in heavy chains 
To wildest northern plains ! 
The recreant's mocking breath 
JMust not the ease of death ! " 



VISION AND PROPHECY 143 

Fruitless the despot's plan 

Of banishing the man. 

Borne by the ready airs, 

His message onward fares, 

Through scenes of joy and dearth, 

Around the peopled earth ! 

Hill tells it unto fen, 

The wilds to homes of men, 

The mountain to the moor, 

The robin at the door 

Of cottage and of hall — 

That broken soon the thrall 

Of Russian slaves will be. 

And joy of Liberty ! 



And chant the brooks and birds 

"The angel-written words 

About a nation's sin 

Are ever bur?iing in ! " 

And other birds are singing 

In every morn of winging, 

In every moon of flying 

For food for birdlings crying, 

And eve of homeward hieing 



144 VISION AND PROPHECY 

To nest, and rest, and love, 

A message from above 

Befitting lark or dove 

To sing in all the earth : 

" Man's greatest wealth, his worth, 

His unearned plenty, dearth ; 

His best of liberty. 

Deserving to be free." 



Still other birds that fly 
And sing, they know not why, 
Thus cheer, inspire and warn 
At eve and happy morn ; 
" Whatever first success, 
What flatterers address. 
How fondly love caress. 
How praiseth selfishness 
That hopes return, to bless, 
Whatever is the stress 
Of noyance that doth press. 
War waged for wrong is wrong. 
And weak and never strong. 
And weak is war for might ; 
But ever finds true knight 



A WARNING TO COLUMBIA 145 

That stronp^ is war for right, 

For God is in the fight ! 

Though right should lose the fray, 

And victory delay, 

Yet surely comes the day 

Of victory, to stay. 

And show that right hath might ; 

For God is in the fight ! " 



A WARNING TO COLUMBIA, 

T)UT briefly where it sung 

The sentient glowing hung. 
Then over seas it came, 
The fearless warning flame, 
And o'er Potomac's tide 
In indignation cried. 
As, eyeing halls of state, 
Mid-air the burning sate, 
Self-poised in conscious truth 
And sense of lasting youth : 
'* For shame, Columbia, shame ! 
Bedimming thy bright name 



146 A WARNING TO COLUMBIA 

By leaguing with the power 
That claims by heavenly dower 
Each individual soul 
Of realm in his control, 
With right to dominate, 
Unto severest fate 
Those bending not the knee 
At nod of Tyranny ! 



^* Why dost thou promise, why, 
That when to thee shall fly 
Those fortunate to break 
Their bondage and to take 
Across the seas their way. 
West guided by the ray 
Of freedom, to thy land. 
They shall be held for hand 
Of czar, whose wrath they flee 
To f]y in hope to thee ? 
These sent to despot back, 
To dungeon and to rack, 
For holding but the thought 
That ill the monarchs wrought 
Who joyed to curse 
With an oppression worse 



ORDEAL AND OUTCOME I47 

Than the tyrannic crimes 
Of old barbaric times ! 
In league, Columbia, why. 
With Russian tyranny ? " 



In silence, then, the flame, 
To hear if answer came 
From out Columbian hall. 
And, saying " Deaf to all. 
And to thy past untrue ! " 
1 he lustre, sighing, flew 
To welcome of the blue, 
That bent, sad questioning. 
And bade the birds to sing, 
And brooks — " Columbia, why 
In league with tyranny ?" 



ORDEAL AND OUTCOME. 

r^ PATRIOTS, pure and strong, 

^^^ And waiting now so long, 

And patiently, to see 

The morn of liberty. 

Wait on, for God doth wait ! 



148 ORDEAL AND OUTCOME 

For Christ, when in the fate 
O'er which all nature wept 
And Heaven sad vigils kept, 
His slayers could forgive, 
And died that they might live. 
He shed in death the tears 
That permeate the years, 
And ever plead with man 
The beauty of the plan 
Of giving bread for blows, 
For thorn, the thornless rose 
Of love, that sweeter grows 
Through trials oft and sore. 
That, wounded, o'er and o'er, 
Doth from its fragrant store 
The balm of good disburse, 
And blessings breathe for curse. 



To keep this code of heaven. 
Ye patriots have forgiven, 
In hope that kindness win 
Who seventy times should sin. 
But seven times that have striven 
These foes of man and Heaven, 



ORDEAL AND OUTCOME 149 

And by ten thousand times 
Have multiplied their crimes. 
And ye forgive and wait, 
Enduring still your fate. 
And Heaven impatient grows, 
And, noting long the woes 
Of Poland and of all 
Within the Russian's thrall, 
Will surely send a hand, 
To write where tyrant band, 
In revel o'er their wine, 
Shall read and know the sign 
Grim glistening on the wall. 
That tyranny must fall ! 
Aye, patience, may endure ; 
But wrath deferred is sure. 
And soon the man shall rise 
To hear and heed the cries 
Of victims of the czars. 
And then, O waiting stars. 
How will ye shout and sing 
And call the birds to wing . 
In swiftest flight, to tell 
Wherever patriots dwell, 



ISO 



ORDEAL AND OUTCOME 

His name who conquered Tyranny 
And set the exiles free, 
And Poland's flag unfurled 
To honor in the world. 



Aye, God will heed the cries 

Of Poland's agonies. 

For, though His name is Love, 

And His the carrier dove. 

Yet His the eagle is, 

And all the majesties 

Of all the life of earth, 

Since far creation's birth ! 

He gave the tiger power, 

And ocean monsters dower, 

To lash the seas to rage 

And mighty ships engage, 

He taught the earth to quake, 

And made the mountains shake. 

'Twas He created light 

And piled the Alpine height. 

He set the rhythmic spheres 

To cadence of the years 

Of the eternity 

He gave the right to be ! 



ORDEAL AND OUTCOME 151 

His Christ of Olivet 
And Galilee used, yet, 
A scourge ; His Moses saw 
The lightnings of the law 
From Sinai blaze, to tell 
That with Jehovah dwell 
All powers, and it is well 
With those alone who fear 
Him, and in truth sincere. 
Hold all His statutes dear. 
Who live for righteousness, 
And never to oppress. 
And He, if stubborn prove 
The czars to pleas of love, 
Will call some iron man 
To execute His plan, 
To thunder forth His wrath 
And plow with war a path 
Through tyranny's domains 
And break the exiles' chains, 
And lead each patriot band 
To home and native land. 



And yet, protesting rhyme 
Against the Russian crime, 



152 ORDEAL AND OUl COME 

Fail not his worth to sing, 

Who, once in Russia king. 

Had righted much of wrong. 

Had not the furious throng 

Smote Alexander down 

And set the Russian crown 

Against the Polish cause 

Of Liberty's good laws. 

And Polish patriots see 

A crime in anarchy. 

No vengeance on their foes 

Would they ; but thornless rose 

And white, and every flower 

Of Peace for those whose power 

Hath been so long the ban 

Of Poland and of raan ! 

Unselfish in their grief, 

These patriots seek relief 

For all who feel 

The tyrant's iron heel. 

To people of the realm 

They seek to give the helm 

Of Russian power. 

As rightful dower. 

Nor charge they the rod 

Of tyranny to God. 



A PILGRIMAGE OF CZARS 153 

And spurn they the extremes 
-Of the ill-visioned dreams 
Of those anarchic fools 
Whom wild unwisdom rules, 
They of that base alloy 
Which nerves men to destroy. 



A PILGRIMAGE OF CZARS. 

\\TlLh tyrants turn who make 
^^ Their chief delight to break 
The patriotic heart, 
And name their crime an art ! 
Yet grant imagination scope, 
And patience chance to hope 
That czars be won to sense 
Of need of penitence, 
Or scourged until they see 
How wrong the cruelty 
That gives to Poland tears 
And damns a thousand years ! 
Should miracle be done, 
The greatest under sun 



154 A PILGRIMAGE OF CZARS . 

The visioned stars have seen, 
And czars repentance mean — 
Go, czars, by conscience sent, 
" Go, honored to repent, 
Go, with your burden bent, 
Go any way ye must, 
Go, if through thorns and dust ; 
Go, if with heavy chains 
Like exiles o'er the plains ! 
Go, grateful that you may ; 
Go, seek fit place to pray. 
Go where the zephyrs say 
That sigh from heaven's way ! 
Go, foes of liberty. 
And fall on suppliant knee 
Where dust of Kracut is 
'Mid Cracow's mysteries, 
The first of Polish kings 
The muse of history sings, 
The Slavic chief of time 
Ere czars had cursed his clime. 
There, pleading not the claim 
Of royalty or fame. 
But only His good name 
Who gave the one relief 
That owned himself a thief — 



BY Kosciusko's dust 155 

There tell the skies your sin, 
Aware, as ye begin, 
That Christ, the ever^kind, 
With justice mild, consigned 
To millstone and the sea 
The unwept tyranny 
Of Pharisees of old, 
To whom ye likeness hold ! 
Kneel, then, in Cracow,"where 
The soul of Wanda fair 
Doth frequent still the air 
Above the hill that claims 
Sweetest of Polish names. 
And ask you there of Heaven 
If czars can be forgiven ! 



BY KOSCIUSKO'S DUST. 

'T^HEN, with this pleading done, 

If beams benignant sun. 
Or if for you there shine 
One ray of star benign. 
Then seek another grave, 
His place whom Heaven gave. 



156 BY Kosciusko's dust 

To show to czars and earth 

A Polish patriot's worth, 

And sent to aid, in youth, 

Columbia's cause of truth. 

There, by this hero's rest. 

See, if, with prayer addressed 

The Heaven of Liberty, 

Czars can forgiven be 

Of Heaven and of the free ! 

There hear from far the cry 

Of those who hope, or try 

To hope, before they die. 

To see once more the home 

From which dear memories come. 

O ! memories that burn, 

And into torments turn ! 

How must the exiles yearn 

For once to grasp the hand 

•Of kindred in the land 

Of their great leader's birth. 

The dearest land of earth ! 

O, cruel tyranny ! 

That freemen may not see 

For once the 'boyhood farm. 

Sweet with the pet brook's charm ; 



BY KOSCIUSKO S DUST 157 

For once the childhood cot, 
For once the play-place grot, 
For once the daisied mead. 
For once two paths to lead, 
As once, to trysting place 
Of bravery and of grace ! 
For once the grassy mound 
That love's fair roses crowned ! 
There's Linka's ashes lie. 
Who had the choice to die 
Or tell's the tyrant's spy, 
When by His Highness bid, 
Of patriot Pavel hid ! 



And there's the outlook hill. 
And there the near-by rill, 
And there the other stream, 
Whose unforgotten gleam 
Inspired the boyhood dream 
Of busy, stirring life. 
Of joy in hardest strife, 
Of earning high success 
And coming home to bless. 
With nobly won largess. 



158 BY Kosciusko's dust 

The village where in joy 
Erstwhile dwelt the boy ! 
Instead, condemned to pine, 
Imprisoned in a mine, 
For that high quality 
That fits men to be free ! 



There, where the good man lies, 
Best of the sanctities 
Of the Sarmatian land, 
There, tyrants, stand, 
There, tyrants, kneel. 
And well the honor feel ! 
There, ye who give a slave 
The right to choose his grave, 
The felon, who atones, 
With hempen halter, groans 
He caused, the right to say 
Where ye his bones shall lay — 
There, by Kosciusko's dust. 
Be honest once, and just ! 
There, talk, repentant czars. 
With conscience and the stars. 
The eyeing stars, that see 
What is sincerity, 



BY KOSCIUSKO S DUST 159 

And will no fleeting mood 
Of tears for years of blood ! 
Tell stars and conscience why 
In vain do freemen cry 
To you for boon of serf, 
For one green stretch of turf, 
Where, from foreign strand 
Sent back to native land — 
Where, if not given breath 
At home, they may at death 
_Be sent to final rest. 
To slumber unoppressed ! 



Cannot endure the stars ? 
Why, there's a place, ye czars, 
Where stars do never shine, 
And whence no royal line 
Or peasant cometh back 
By straight or devious track — 
But onward still must fare 
Whoever goeth there ! 
And there's another, too, 
IVhere stars are never due, 
But lurid lightnings glare, 
And demons rule the air ; 



l6o WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS 



And hither none shall fare 
That ever enter there ! 
And there's another, still, 
Of flowery plain and hill 
Of Sion, blest abode 
Of angels and of God ! 
And of the saints who rise 
F'rom earth's hard agonies 
To freedom of the skies ! 
But, untransformed by grace 
To fitness for the place, 
In heaven no tyrants live ; 
For heavenly blisses give 
Such influence that 'twere hell 
For tyrants there to dwell. 



WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS. 

f\ VAIN, presuming stars, 
^-^ Why contradict the czars ! 
For they have lived to see 
Too much of history 
To deign to a reply 
When even Russians lie ! 



WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS l6l 



Boast not your hosts in arms, 
That give the world alarms. 
For steel-clad giants are 
But pigmies to a star. 
Stars laugh at all your power 
And point to Shinar's tower, 
That wa<:, and Babylon, 
That boasted to the sun 
Of her Chaldean might ! 
And held the world in fright, 
And perished in a night ! 
And but her ruins tell 
Of Babylon that fell ! 



And point the stars to king 
Of whom but furies sing. 
The Herod throned of yore. 
But cursed forever more 
In street and cloister lore. 



From scanning these 
Look back to Rameses, 



l62 WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS 



Who and whose like gave tears 

For twice two hundred years 

To chosen sons of God. 

And these condemned to plod, 

Scourged by oppression's rod 

That grew by gore, 

These, through their bondage sore. 

Upon God's promise fed, 

Till, brave enough, they fled, 

By visioned shepherd led. 



And now the sea before 
Withholds from freedom's shore, 
And prisoning mountains stand, 
To hold for Pharoah's hand. 
But look ! the flood divides. 
Heaven holds apart the tides ! 
The fugitives pass through ; 
Menephtah's hosts pursue. 
But fierce returning waves 
Whelm in their watery graves 
Ruler, horsemen, all — 
A wreck that hints the fall 
Of the Egyptian throne, 
O'er which, in warning moan, 



WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS 163 



The ages sweep, to say 
That tyrants pass away ! 



Man's title to be free 

Is writ in history. 

And nature, too, decries 

The despot's tyrannies. 

In waking life of spring. 

When glad the robins sing ; 

In the persuasive breath 

Of June from flowery heath ; 

In airs that sweeten shade 

Of pleasant wooded glade 

And move the fairy ferns 

To dance by merry burns ; 

In storms around the peaks 

Where fierce the thunder speaks ; 

In chill November's gale 

That sweeps the frosted vale ; 

In Ocean's sullen roar 

On Winter's icy shore — 

In all her ministries. 

The voice of nature is 

Rebuke of tyrannies. 



164 WARNINGS FROM ELDER DAYS 



In tender tones and mild 
As plaintive voice of child, 
In clarion peal, and strong 
As burst of lyric song ; 
Commanding, deep and slow 
As centuries that flow 
Through history 
Toward eternity — 
The olden warning word, 
Repeated, now is heard 
In all the upward trend 
To Consummation's end ; 
The word in every wind, 
The word in every mind. 
But yours, audacious czars. 
Who contradict the stars — 
Let ye my people go ! 
Let ye the exiles go ! 





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